An Interview with a Trailblazer

I got a chance to interview the global executive talent
consultant, World Business Forum speaker and prestigious Egon
Zehnder executive Claudio Fernandez-Araoz the other day. We
discussed several things, but perhaps the most important dealt
with leadership, ethics and morals in a world that is forgetting
the importance of holding the door open for someone. Although I
understand this doesn't have direct relations to other posts that
I've put up or some of the ones you guys put up, I think it is
important to hear, especially on a forum with such bright, young
minds.

Leadership in the next 25 years...

"The future fits the definition of VUCA (Volatility, uncertainty,
complexity and ambiguity). It is as unpredictable as the past!
However, there has been a great convergence in technology and
industry. Thus, it will be much harder to have privacy as a
leader in the public realm or in the corporate realm, for that
matter. It will be, in a sense, an Age of Transparency. For this
reason, leaders must know how to do three things definitively in
order to better serve the purpose of their peoples: build
communion between what they do, what they say and who they are."

The Skills

"Leaders must have a large sense of ethos, pathos and logos, for
a single matter. Although, more generally speaking, leaders must
have integrity, one of the key principles behind successful
leadership in any era. Leaders must be engaging, passionate and
must combine a thirst and hunger with the humility that will take
them to achieve it. Just as the world is changing at such a rate,
leadership must be defined by adaptability. Leaders need to be
able to change because change is the most powerful vehicle for
impact and force that exists. Leaders need to be team players and
need to have a desire to put others before themselves. The true
success of a leader comes in the success of his/ her people. I
have a philosophy that leaders need to show three things in order
to succeed: mastery, autonomy and purpose. Do not disregard
contextual merit, it's necessary. However, emotional intelligence
and fervor are just as important."

Education

"There has been a very noticeable trend in education over the
past few decades. While our emphasis on STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) has grown to match the
competitive job markets of our world economies today, there has
been one facet of personal development that has plummeted in
instruction, quality and all around awareness--emotional
intelligence/ emotional IQ. There is a lot of research that has
been done to show that the key to state success with education
comes with combining home and school to be an encouraging setting
for progress. Also, the level of commitment and competitiveness
within countries around the world varies greatly. Take Singapore
and South Korea, for example. Both have bettered their economies,
education systems and infrastructure fairly rapidly. Some of that
progress has been happening in Latin America as well. I think
what's important in improving education around the world is
remembering three necessary factors for the success of any
system: a government dedicated to improving state education,
passionate teachers that really want to make a change and of
course, more stress of emotional intelligence, something which we
greatly need in our time of electronic screens, internet
connections and no face-to-face communication."

If you would like to see more of our interview, check out my
column on www.theledger.com and searching my name/ column
title "Figuring it Out".